With the year nearing its end, Disney has left its rivals in the dust at the box office by reaching the elusive $3 billon to date. One key to this success has been acquiring other companies with valuable IPS and maximising the growth and revenue potentials.
Forbes contributor Mark Hughes suggested that Disney should buy Netflix, Paramount and Sony in order to further expand their holdings, build a bigger catalogue of new properties, have their own platform for sharing content with the largest possible audience as directly as possible and finding a way to save ESPN from a slide that continues to be the one small drag on the company's stock and performance overall.. He immediately clarifed that it's a guess. But if any company is positioned to navigate the laws and buy even more stables of characters, it's Disney.
Moving to a sustainable, stable streaming platform that allows live broadcast to a huge global audience is a good option. However, creating their own streaming service as they are doing right now is far less appealing than getting hold of an existing, massive streaming that serves many other needs while instantly putting ESPN in a completly new and ideal postiion.
Netflix has 104 million subscribers, and has enjoyed pretty constant groth. It has multiple deals with a wide variety of studios and production companies to stream content and create new exclusive content. And it's frankly them ost recognizable name brand in content-streaming today.
The smart move for Disney, then, is to buy Netflix and move ESPN over to that platform. There are several options for the specifics -- make it an add-on service like the DVD option, or go for sheer quantity of subscribers by simply adding ESPN to the service at no extra charge (at first, anyway) to subscribers, and in either case providing advertising space during the streaming broadcasts. Keeping the games avaliable for one month, for anyone wanting to save up a block of games to binge on (perhaps creating a new way of viewing sports programming) or re-watch them, would provided added advertising potential (albeit at a lower rate than during the live broadcast and subsequent first 24 hours of "rerun" streaming). And the fact this would make ESPN content more readily avaliable on mobile devices via the Netflix app -- where ad revenue could again be generated to greater affect at higher rates, due to the large subscriber base -- shouldn't be forgotten.
Purchasing Sony and Paramount is another big move that Disney could and should consider, along with a big Netflix merger. The back catalogue of films and TV shows would be a boon in the aftermath of a Netflix purchase that would surely see some competitors ending their deals to stream content on Netflix, as well as providing a lot of new IPs to develop. Paramount has Mission Impossible, G.I Joe, Transformers, Terminator, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Star Trek for example, while a purchase of Sony would brng Spider-Man fully under Marvel's control and add Men in Black, Jump Street, Underworld, Resident Evil and (If Sony manages to retain it) James Bond to Disney's list of franchises to exploit on film, television, and streaming.
I'd go for Paramount first, before Sony Pictures, just because it's got more to offer. And I'd do that ahead of a Netflix deal, since having Netflix in-hand would make the "threat level" to other studios far more obvious. Which in turn means the Netflix and Sony deals would need to be either simultaneous or in quick succession, so nobody else steps in to gobble up Sony first instead.
Disney has had some remarkable success at the box office lately, and the coming years are shaping up to continue that trend, but ultimately they need their own streaming service for their large library content, and they need to solve their ESPN problem before it grows worse. Netflix provides the answers to those problems, and opens new doors for Disney as well. All of their content in one place, a global streaming sports option, a subscriber base of 100 million, and the chance to introduce advertising options into that already valuable equation. If Disney isn't going to trade ESPN, then Netflix is the right call, and the sooner they make it the better.
Have a listen to his article for yourselves and let us know what you make of them.